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Apply the breaks? Canary Islands protests show it’s time for a rethink about the impact of overtourism, as does a trip for travel editor Nigel Thompson to Santorini
In May 1969, a skinny schoolboy from an English market town celebrated his ninth birthday with his parents. Not at home under the big skies of East Anglia, but in Malgrat de Mar, a beach resort near Barcelona.
His Liverpudlian parents had left the city in 1959 with a job move and, 10 years later, they had upgraded the family home from a modest council house to a mortgaged three-bedroom semi. Holidays were getting an upgrade too – from a caravan in Great Yarmouth to joining the first, joyful wave of Brits jetting to the sun-drenched Spanish costas.
Foreign holidays were, literally, taking off in the booming late Sixties and the Apollo Saturn V-obsessed boy with wavy brown hair was beyond excited about his first trip on a plane, a hotel with a swimming pool, a newly-acquired red and white lilo and a seemingly limitless supply of chilled chocolate milk. His parents opted for chilled drinks that were certainly not chocolate milk.
The boy was me and, with my parents now sadly departed to the Great Sunlounger in the Sky, I cannot verify the price of the holiday or the name of the beachfront hotel. But I am fairly sure it was with the now-defunct Clarksons and we flew from Luton, probably with Court Line.
It was a fabulous week: endless hours on the lilo in the pool, a matador poster birthday present from the holiday rep (a young German woman– Ingrid?) and there was a railway by the beach and I was mesmerised to near Apollo-levels by the expresses hurtling past the sands.
Dad also took me to Barcelona FC’s Camp Nou stadium and said it was almost as good as Anfield. He was a wise man. And, in 1969, Spain was still under the dictatorship of Generalissimo Franco and his stern machine-gun-toting Guardia Civil police with their curious Tricornio leather hats. They were even more scary than my teacher, Miss Frost.
Was it exciting being in the vanguard of British tourism to Spain? Absolutely, I was regaling my school mates with tales of exotic Spain (mostly the wonders of chilled chocolate milk and speeding trains by the beach) for days when I got back.
So, fast forward five decades to just before the pandemic. The schoolboy is now in his late 50s, certainly not skinny and unencumbered by wavy brown hair. And I am on a Mediterranean cruise with my wife Debbie, with the ship calling next at gorgeous Santorini in Greece’s Cyclades islands.
It should have been one of the highlights of the week-long voyage. It turned out to be an overtourism Hades. There were five cruise ships anchored in the caldera, disgorging thousands of passengers by tenders to the small harbour below clifftop Insta-fave Fira.
The queue for the cable car ride up was a tedious hour or so. Then we emerged into the insanity of Fira – a seething morass of sweating humanity shuffling through the narrow streets, bumping into each other, doors, cafe chairs and tables.
Ludicrously rammed. Truly awful. Debbie and I agreed this was not something to be part of and there were simply way too many cruise passengers visiting in a day. We bailed. Cable car queue out of Hades dodged, a slippery walk down the donkey poo-slimed cobbles of the Karavolades Stairs took us to a tender and a retreat to the ship.
Never again, we said. Too many people. Much as we love a cruise, something needs to be done. And Santorini has acted.
Measures to relieve overtourism pressures include a levy and daily limit on the number of cruise passengers and restrictions on how many ships can visit. Other ports such as Nice, Amsterdam and Venice have also enforced restrictions and Juneau in Alaska is looking at options
Spain has been at the forefront of locals’ overtourism protests – perhaps 100,000 massed across the Canaries last weekend – and cruise limits are in place in Barcelona and Palma. This is not just about cruise passengers, though. There are wider issues of mass beach and city tourism in Spain and beyond and the impact it can have on a community
That said, we should not forget the huge amount of valuable income tourism can generate. Billions poured into economies and hundreds of thousands of jobs are not to be ignored, just as the grievances of locals in destinations are not to be ignored either. A very tricky issue to balance out.
Indeed, the problem is much closer to home, too, with concerns in holiday hotspots Norfolk and Cornwall that tourist towns are choked in high season and being ‘hollowed out’ with the rise of second homes and short-term rentals such as Airbnb making it harder for locals to get on the property ladder.
So what can be done?
There is no easy sticking plaster for a complicated and emotive problem, though sensible levels of cruise ship access does seem a reasonably simple and effective quick fix for certain locations.
Nightly tourist taxes? More and more common but I think they just grift a few quid for the local council and determined travellers shrug their shoulders, pay up and turn up. Quotas? Not sure how that can be implemented with freedom of movement. How can you stop someone getting on a plane to Barcelona or Tenerife?
A quota of digital tourism permits for a hotel stay? Possibly. But how to enforce for the unlicensed privately rented accommodation? And discover new, lesser-visited places?
This seems to have potential to spread the load around and enjoy exploring fresh destinations. Might just be a bit cheaper too. Go in less-crowded low/shoulder-season? Again, it may spread the load, share revenue around the months and again may save you a few quid.
Stay at home? It’s not always sunny here and that holiday abroad is always one of the last things hard-working Brits will give up.
Getaways overseas have changed immeasurably since the 1969 boy with the lilo – and overtourism is not an issue that is going to lie low.
Spain holidays at a glance
1969 – Spain has 18.9 million foreign tourists
2024 – Spain has 18.8 million tourists from the UK alone